Apologia Radio #133 – Incrementalism, Satire and False Piety

On this episode of Apologia Radio we discuss the latest from Planned Parenthood and how incrementalism denies the sovereignty of God and how false piety and a desire to appear holy for the masses actually weakens Christians in the fight. Should Christian’s deceive others in order to end abortion? We also discuss how Christians don’t seem to understand cutting satire and why it is important that people like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver shouldn’t only exist in the secular media.

It’s a great episode. Please share it with your friends and let people know about what we are doing. Thanks again for all of your support and for joining All-Access so we can keep creating these podcasts and reaching people all over the world with the Gospel.

I hope you didn’t consider my comment on your satire video to be out of place or anger inducing. I said the video was a little over the top for such a serious issue. I also suggested that the video may have been more effective had you included facts linking Nazi Germany with Planned Parenthood (e.g. number of murders, eugenics ties, minority abortions/deaths being high for both, etc.). As the video is, it can easily be rejected and ignored by anti-life individuals, and it can also be easily accepted and praised by most pro-life individuals. It’s either being rejected by most of those who need to be reached or preaching to the choir. I thought the extra info would have put the cherry on top of an already good video (making it great).

I think that satire and a sharp edge can be needed and useful to cut just deep enough, in order to expose the absurdity beneath the surface. I think your satire was/is well placed (even mentioned that satire would still work after or around cutting details linking Nazi Germany with PP), but it wasn’t as sharp as it needed to be (more like a blunt instrument rather than a cutting scalpel hitting an artery using striking info).

One thing I want to mention is how close you guys are to this topic. You asked people like me what I’m doing to stop abortion. I find that God uses me more for ministering to atheists or helping others, but that’s beside the point. Don’t you think that you guys being so close to this makes the emotions in you that much more riled up? I’m not saying this is the case, but that can make you more extreme or touchy on the subject. Cooler minds may have some valid things to offer up as criticism. I don’t agree with most, if any, of the criticism you read, but I do feel some of your irritation was directed at me because I did offer a little criticism, myself. I’d almost turn your words around toward you and say don’t be too pious as to ignore any and all criticism. I may be way off base, but you left me thinking that you may ignore such criticism.

One last thing I was a little confused by was your response to the person saying they wouldn’t lie to the SS officer at the door. Are you saying in that situation we shouldn’t trust God? Also, it’s not a dichotomy: lie or tell the truth. You could simply tell the SS officer that he can search your house if he needs/wants to. That’s not lying or even being very, if at all, deceptive. According to you guys, if you lie in that situation, does that mean you didn’t sin? God can use evil for good, but that doesn’t mean we should sin when it suits us or when we think it’s right to. Would I lie in the situation of the SS officer? I don’t know. If fear overtook me and I did, then I’d ask God to forgive me for lying and not trusting Him, afterward. God wouldn’t give me anything I couldn’t handle (or that the Jews couldn’t handle, who were hiding in my house). What if God had a purpose in me and the Jews getting arrested, by telling the truth? What if God made the German think I was kidding by saying, “Yep, they’re in the attic.”? I’m not saying you guys are being licentious or anything, but I would put my faith in God over my own judgement of any given situation.

And P.S. I’m a little offended that you guys may say I’m trying to be pious in some of these situations. I’m not too worried about what other people think of me (if you knew what I look like, you’d see evidence of that). I try my best to follow the objective morals in the Bible, not for myself but because of what Christ did for me. To steal/paraphrase a quote, “I don’t do these things to get into heaven; I do them because I’m going.” Why am I going? Because of what Christ did for me; it’s not anything that I’ve done. I have nothing to boast about in regard to any good in me; that’s Christ in me and not myself. But I’m very sure I’m preaching to the choir here. 😉

Thank you for your program. I was clued in to your ministry via James White.

Do you know that there is a precedent for what you are speaking of on this program with regard to using satire to get across a Christian worldview? I am thinking specifically of the short stories of Flannery O’Connor. Her literature is laced with a Christian worldview and she said that in order to get truth across to our modern culture, you sometimes have to shout to get their attention. This explains the surreal, absurd, striking, grotesque and sometimes violent quality to her stories. This is in effect, what you are talking about on this program. Sometimes to wake up the culture you need to shout and paint sin or the effects of sin in broad, exaggerated colors to get peoples’ attention.

Try reading her short called “The River.” It features a young boy whose parents don’t pay attention to him and are more interested in leading a partying lifestyle. The ending gives me chills but is spiritually significant. Her story “A Circle in the Fire,” which involves a self-righteous, priggish woman trying desperately to control her circumstances, is equally challenging. I have not read but have seen John Huston’s movie adaptation of her “Wise Blood.” It features a man who is running away from God and is attempting to hang out with the most depraved people he can find. But every time he hears them take the Lord’s name in vain, he is reminded of the very Person whom he is trying to run away from. Check them out!